MANILA, Philippines - Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, presiding judge in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, stopped yesterday an executive of Philippine Airlines (PAL) from testifying on the alleged travel perks given to the chief magistrate, saying his testimony was beyond the scope of the impeachment complaint.
Enrique Javier, 53, PAL vice president for sales, had barely begun his testimony when it was cut short by Enrile, who argued that it was irrelevant to the issue being discussed yesterday, which was Article 3 of the impeachment complaint.
Article 3 accuses Corona of culpable violation of the Constitution and/or betrayal of public trust for his role in the Supreme Court’s flip-flopping on cases, including the one between PAL and an organization of flight attendants and stewardesses.
“We deny this witness. It is not relevant to Article 3,” Enrile told the prosecution’s Rep. Sherwin Tugna. It was Tugna who introduced Javier to the impeachment court.
“You are not very careful in your allegations, and you want to expand it in the course of the trial. I warned you several times,” Enrile said. “You know, there is a limit to the patience of this court.”
He said Javier would have testified on “alleged bribery” of Corona, an allegation not included in Article 3.
Enrile said the prosecution should amend its impeachment complaint if it would insist on raising issues regarding Corona’s alleged perks from PAL.
An amendment of the complaint would require bringing the Articles of Impeachment back to the House of Representatives – an effort that might come to naught in view of the one-year prohibition against filing of impeachment cases against an impeachable official.
The prosecution said Corona and his wife Cristina enjoyed special privileges from PAL at the time the decision on the case of the Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines (FASAP) was reversed by the Supreme Court.
“This witness is allegedly being presented in connection with Article 3 and there is no mention of alleged plane tickets mentioned in here,” lead defense counsel Serafin Cuevas said.
“Now counsel for the prosecution, what’s the relevancy, and materiality of the witness to this charge?” Enrile asked.
“The presentation of the testimony of the vice president of PAL is that the respondent and his wife received free travel benefits, special privileges while a case is pending before the SC need not be alleged in the complaint…,” Tugna said. “Because there are mere statements of evidentiary facts which constitute as to reason for the partiality of the respondent for the Philippine Airlines. Partiality,” Tugna stressed.
But Enrile was not convinced.
“Now you are expanding the coverage of this article, this court will not allow the expansion of that article, unless you amend it. So ordered,” a visibly exasperated Enrile said.
“The court has already ruled, you are wasting the time of this Court... My God, we need to have some discipline in here. You made allegations and you want to expand it, without the proper charges in Article 3,” Enrile added. The Senate president stopped Tugna when the latter tried again to explain the relevance of Javier’s testimony. “If you want to introduce that, then amend your Articles of Impeachment,” Enrile told the prosecutor.
Tugna insisted that the witness’ testimony would “help establish the partiality of the respondent in favor of Philippine Airlines.”
‘Take me to court’
“But you did not allege it here, but the court has ruled so that’s it. You take me to the court,” Enrile said, prompting Senate majority leader Vicente Sotto III to “discharge” Javier from the witness stand.
To press his point, Enrile read aloud Article 3 of the impeachment complaint.
“I just read to you Article 3 of your impeachment. This is the one that will be voted upon by the members of this court. There is no allegation in Article 3, you alleged about perquisites or favors,” he said.
“The charge in Article 3 is that the respondent culpably violated the Constitution and betrayed the public trust because he lacks independence and integrity,” Tugna explained.
“Wait a minute, when the court speaks you stop. You read the way you framed your Article 3… I know you are a literate person and it says, you are quoting Section 7, para 3 of the Constitution that provides that a member of the judiciary must be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity and independence and the rest in that three charges…,” the Senate President said. Despite Tugna’s insistence, Enrile discharged the witness.
The Senate court then had to adjourn early since there were no more witnesses on standby yesterday for Article 3.
Lead prosecutor Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. also tried to defend Javier’s testimony but got a dressing down from Enrile.
“The prosecution takes exception to the ruling regarding the matter. It is the position of the prosecution that with the presentation of the witness from PAL, the prosecution does not expand the complaint as stated,” Tupas said.
“As to the relevancy of Article 3, it proves consideration, inducement, motive. To us, the motive here is very, very important, crucial, critical to impeachment proceeding. To us, it is very important to prove the motive of impeachment. The very heart of Article 3 is integrity, probity and independence,” he added.
“Mr. Counsel, I do not know how you learned your art of pleading. I do not fault you but I am basing my ruling on your allegations and nothing more. And if you’re going to insist on your position, I say I will not change the ruling,” he added.
Enrile threatened to send the Articles of Impeachment back to the House of Representatives if the prosecution would insist on including bribery in its allegations against Corona in Article 3.
“You want me to order you to amend Articles of Impeachment and send it back to the house? You have a choice,” Enrile said.
“You are in effect alleging a crime, which we’ll have to evaluate whether it is a high crime. You are in effect alleging that it was a bribe to make that decision,” he said.
“The discharge of your witness was because his testimony was considered irrelevant with respect to Article 3... is not the fault of this court. It was the fault of your way of presenting your case and in making your allegations in your Articles of Impeachment,” he added.
Tupas continued to defend the position of the prosecution and even argued that the court was dismissing the witness on mere technicality.
“We respect that but technicalities cannot be permitted to prevail in such an important proceeding,” Tupas said.
“For heavens sake this is not technicality! The grounds for impeachment are very clearly stated in Article 11 of the Constitution. We are already very liberal. You are in effect asking us to review decisions of the Supreme Court,” Enrile said.
“Who are we to review the decisions of the Supreme Court? We allow it in order not to embarrass you but you are going too far. Do you want me to lecture to you more?” he added.
To which Tupas replied: “No need Mr. presiding officer.”
“If your articles are defective, that’s your responsibility. You made an allegation, specifically this: charging the respondent (with) lack of probity, integrity and so forth and so on and you stated the basis of your conclusion,” Enrile said.
“Your statement that he doesn’t have competence, integrity, probity and what else, independence, is a conclusion of fact based on what you want to prove and now you’re offering a stranger in paradise to prove an allegation that doesn’t exist in Article 3. That’s why I consider this a trash. Let it be a part of your manifestation,” he added.
‘Guided optimism’
Defense lawyer Rico Paolo Quicho said they welcomed Enrile’s decision with “guided optimism.”
“We’ve been saying all along that it’s easy to make accusations without presenting evidence,” Quicho said in Filipino.
Cuevas was more optimistic, saying that Enrile’s ruling might pave way for the acquittal of Corona.
Another Corona lawyer, Tranquil Salvador III, observed that the Senate body, especially presiding officer Enrile, may have had enough of the violation of procedures by the prosecution in the presentation of witnesses.
“It all boils down to one thing, that the inherent problem is the complaint itself,” Salvador said. “This is simply abiding by the law, so we welcome this.”
Karen Jimeno, defense spokesperson, said they had been very aggressive in convincing the court to determine the validity of the impeachment complaint.
Salvador said Enrile, as presiding officer, just wanted to show how the prosecution should present witnesses.
“It’s very telling... Why don’t you just amend it? That’s very telling,” Salvador said.
The defense lawyers, meanwhile, asked the impeachment court to reconsider the rule that bars lawyers from objecting to or questioning senator-judges.
“We are pleading for a reexamination of this ruling to avoid the usual occurrence of what is known as mistrial. Because while it is true that the proceedings of this court as of the moment may not amount to mistrial, it is equally discernible that it will be raised in the future in the event that the situation goes worse than this,” Cuevas told Enrile.
“We say that this would amount to a mistrial because there is nothing left in favor of the impeached public officer. He cannot object. He cannot make any manifestation. In all probability, as what we have noticed before, the question of a member of this court centers on practically everything,” Cuevas said.
“One question may be raised followed up by another, leading to an issuance of an order requiring the production of documents, which documents have not yet been proved to be material to the issue or relevant to the subject matter under discussion,” he said.
Cuevas said that during the impeachment of former President Joseph Estrada the lawyers were allowed to object to questions from judges.
The former Supreme Court justice noted that there were many documents produced in court that were not formally introduced as evidence and could not be objected to or immediately questioned.
He cited the case of some of the documents such as bank records that were produced in court because of orders of some of senator-judges even if such documents were not originally part of the case or should not be raised in court.
Cuevas argued that an order of a senator-judge to require the witness to produce documents is worse than issuance of subpoena.
“A subpoena may be objected. But if there is a motion of the member of the court (to produce documents), automatically he is under legal obligation,” Cuevas said.
Senator-judge Edgardo Angara, meanwhile, explained that the rule does not bar counsels from both panels from objecting to questioning by a judge.
“There is no ban against any of the lawyers objecting to a question but it is in the form of objection that there is difference,” Angara pointed out.
“Instead of saying I object Mr. Judge you may say Mr. Judge I filed a reservation or an exception to that question because it tends to prejudice my client,” Angara said.
“I think for the sake of fairness we ought to really allow any of the lawyers to make an exemption rather than object verbally to the question of a judge because even in a grand jury that is a procedure,” he said.
Enrile assured Cuevas that his suggestion would be taken up during their caucus.
“We cannot amend the rules now. To amend it will delay the proceedings. We have to republish the rules. We will take this up in caucus,” he told Cuevas.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima is expected to take the witness stand today for the prosecution. – Helen Flores, Jose Rodel Clapano, Marvin Sy - By Christina Mendez (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com)
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